Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as a sleight-of-hand magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. He explores the character of perception and excavates the sensual foundations of language, which--even at its most abstract--echoes the calls and cries of the earth. On every page of this lyrical work, Abram weaves his arguments with passion and intellectual daring.

Contents:
Preface
1. The Ecology of Magic: A Personal Introduction to the Inquiry
2. Philosoyhy on the Way to Ecology: A Technical Introduction to the Inquiry
    Part I: Edmund Husserl and Phenomenology
        Intersubjectivity
        The Life-World
    Part II: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the Participatory Nature of Perception
        The Mindful Life of the Body
        The Body's Silent Conversation With Things
        The Animateness of the Perceptual World
        Perception as Participation
        Synaesthesia-The Fusion of the Senses
        The Recuperation of the Sensuous is the Rediscovery of the Earth
        Matter as Flesh
        Touching and Being Touched: The Recprocity of the Sensuous
3. The Flesh of Language
    Toward an Ecology of Language
    Word Magic
4. Animism and the Alphabet
    The Rapper's Rhythm
    An Eternity of Unchanging Ideas
    Of Tongues in Trees
    Synaesthesia and the Encounter With the Other
5. In the Landscape of Language
    The Language of the Birds
    The Storied Earth
    Dreamtime
    Place and Memory
6. Time, Space, and the Eclipse of the Earth
    Part I: Abstraction
        The Abstraction of Space and Time
        The Indistinction of Space and Time in the Oral Universe
        Exiled in the Word
        Absolute Space and Absolute Time
    Part II: The Living Present
        The Earthly Topology of Time
        In the Depths of the Sensuous
7. The Forgetting and Remembering of the Air
    Wind and Spirit on the Great Plains
    Air and Awareness Among the Dine, or Navajo
    Wind, Breath, and Speech
    The Power of Letters
    The Forgetting of the Air
    Membranes and Barriers
    Remembering
Coda: Turning Inside Out

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